


Inventory Avoidance 101

by umadoshi (Ysabet)



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabet/pseuds/umadoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Steve leaned over to see what Claudia had found, which put him too close to avoid noticing when her shoulders slumped a little. "Boring ping?" he asked.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Nope." She allowed herself one long sigh, straightened, and hopped up. Steve started reading while she paged Artie, but was only halfway through when she came back. She jabbed a finger at the location details. "It's an anyone-but-me ping. Official government badges all the way."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inventory Avoidance 101

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tptigger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptigger/gifts).



> (This Treat is set in early season 4; spoilers through...episode 4x03 or so.)

"You know," Claudia said from where she was lying in the middle of the office floor, "I'm pretty sure the warehouse agent job description _explicitly_ says 'never a dull moment'. I feel cheated."

Steve stepped over her and stole her usual seat at the main computer. "There's a job description?"

"Mine is apparently back to saying 'inventory, inventory, and more inventory'."

"And you want inventory to be exciting?"

She gave him an upside-down squint. "Oh, please. Exciting inventory is bad news. Pings are good. Pings are pretty much by definition _not_ inventory."

"You realize that every ping we answer _adds_ to the inventory, right?"

"As your superior officer, I ban your logic from this discussion."

"First, I hope you also realize that lying on the floor kinda undermines your authority, and second, since when are we in the military?"

Claudia got up, dusting herself off. "What did I just say?"

"Something ridiculous." He vacated her chair and she sat down, fingers on the keyboard the second it was in reach.

Screen after screen popped up while she flipped through them, mumbling "Ping ping ping" under her breath.

"Hey, remember that time we were flying home from Chicago and you were tired and said you never wanted to be on a plane again?" Steve asked. "When was that? Two days ago? It's been so long I can't remember."

"Ping!" Claudia said. Steve opened his mouth to tease her for thinking emphasis would help, only to be interrupted by the distinctive alert notification. "Ha!" she added, entirely unnecessarily.

Steve leaned over to see what she'd found, which put him too close to avoid noticing when her shoulders slumped a little. "Boring ping?" he asked.

"Nope." She allowed herself one long sigh, straightened, and hopped up. Steve started reading while she paged Artie, but was only halfway through when she came back. She jabbed a finger at the location details. "It's an anyone-but-me ping. Official government badges all the way."

Steve stared. "The Pentagon?"

"Yeah. If it was just hacking into their systems or something I'd be all over it--"

"Of course you would."

"--but not even I'm gonna push for faking my way in _there_."

"I'm glad you have at least a trace of self-preservation." Steve squeezed her shoulder and went to intercept Artie, ignoring the confused look she gave him as he left the room.

**********

"It's the Pentagon," Steve said as Artie came up the stairs. "Send Pete and Myka."

Artie adjusted his glasses, the better to eye Steve suspiciously. "Is there any reason I _wouldn't_ send the nominal Secret Service agents on a run to the Pentagon?"

"I can't think of one. It's just you've been splitting us up into different teams a bit lately, and Claud obviously can't do this one."

"And you want to stay with her."

"Yeah, I do."

"Well," Artie said, heading past him, "I can't think of a reason not to send Pete and Myka either. Not that I was looking for one."

**********

The next morning, hours after Myka and Pete had caught their red-eye flight to Virginia--early enough that Claudia looked less envious about their assignment--Steve had to concede that she was right about inventory seeming extra dull lately. Locating and re-filing a set of brass knuckles, no matter who they'd belonged to, just wasn't terribly exciting if they did everything by the book, and Claudia was also right about exciting inventory being a bad thing.

From where she was perched at the very top of a ladder, which gave her an excellent view of how fidgety he was, Claudia called down, "You could make a coffee run. Get some air."

"If I promise to bring you half a cup of mocha with half a cup of whipped cream on top, will you promise not to stay up there the whole time I'm gone?"

"You are the biggest mother hen I've ever met," she yelled back. For just a moment Steve could imagine exactly how the conversation would have played out if they'd had it six months ago: identical words, but followed by Claudia leaning precariously off the ladder just to remind him that she _could_.

She'd largely stopped trying to deliberately freak him out since resurrecting him, which was half because she was a mother hen in her own way--a way that mostly involved trying to protect him from worrying about her, as if she figured he'd exceeded his lifetime quota of concerned looks--and half because the first time she'd baited him after everything had happened, he'd unthinkingly asked if she was trying to scare him to death. She'd joked back, but she'd also blanched as if she was about to be sick.

None of that kept her from taking risks in front of him, whether they were on a job or she was scrambling up after an item on a high shelf. She'd just stopped doing it for fun.

"Does that mean you promise?"

Claudia came down the ladder, a purple-wrapped artifact tucked carefully under her arm. "I promise to keep my feet on solid ground, Jinksy. Fetch me caffeine."

**********

When Steve came back, he found Claudia had entirely abandoned inventory to do something at the computer. She minimized her open tabs as he came in, spinning around in her chair with badly-feigned innocence plastered all over her face. "Nice try," Steve said, handing over her drink. "What're you doing?"

"Just seeing how the mission's going," she replied offhandedly, as if he'd see she was being literally truthful and ignore what that meant.

"Please tell me that doesn't mean you _actually_ hacked the Pentagon."

Claudia tried to take a sip of mocha, failed utterly through the cloud of semi-solid faux whipped cream, and popped the lid off to take a mouthful of that instead. If she was going for the incongruous look, she failed at that too. Eating chocolate- and cinnamon-dusted cream straight out of a coffee cup made her look even younger than she was, but since Steve was reasonably sure she'd already been a world-class hacker by the age of fourteen or so, it made her look no less guilty. "I did basically say I would," she told him.

"No, you told me you would if that was what the mission called for."

"Dude, I am totally watching my mentors at work and learning techniques and stuff. And it's just the surveillance feeds. Chill."

"Did you just call Pete your mentor?"

"Didn't I order you not to logic at me yesterday?" She pulled her tabs back up, showing him a screen split into a dozen camera angles. Two of the cameras were showing Myka and Pete as they talked their way further through the nested layers of Department of Defense security. "I learn tons of stuff from Pete. See, right there--he's reminding me that I should _not_ touch random objects with my bare hands when searching for an unidentified artifact."

"I think everyone but Pete learns that in their first five minutes on the job, Claud."

"Pete's the 'do as I say, not as I do' kind of mentor. And by extension, he's teaching me how to avoid having Myka give me that glare." She successfully took a swig of mocha. "And oh, hey, how not to have Myka smack me when no one's looking. No manual includes that kind of priceless intel."

"So you're saying this is today's entertainment and I might as well get comfortable?"

"Nah, not the whole day. Just until Artie gets in and makes us get back to inventory."

"Just making sure," Steve said, and pulled up another chair.


End file.
